


Denizens of the Garden

by whymzycal



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-22
Updated: 2010-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:04:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/pseuds/whymzycal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two guys meet in a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denizens of the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kansouame in the 2009 Valentine_Smut exchange on LJ. The prompt was "camouflage." Special thanks to moshesque for the brilliant beta work and encouragement.

Right. So this is how it all happened:

 

_The back of his head and his shoulder blades hit the brick wall first, but he didn't care. All he noticed was the bite of juniper in his mouth, like the chill of a winter wind or maybe like glittering spikes of ice hanging from the eaves after a winter storm. And the teeth, _God,_ they were so sharp, nipping at his bottom lip but not breaking the skin, then latching onto his neck and making him shake with the way they bit hard enough to mark him but not nearly enough to make him bleed. Fuck, even the guy's _mouth_ was cool, nothing like the hot, peppery burn still on the roof of his own mouth and in his throat. He made a needy little noise, opened his lips and panted, and then tongue-fucked the guy when he finally came back for more._

 

So our man Cho Hakkai and our other man, Sha Gojyo, were drinking here at the bar, the one drowning his sorrows and the other cruising for a sure thing, respectively. But on this night, the sorrows weren't staying drowned, and the sure things weren't looking so sure. So by last call, they were the only two sorry-lookin' fellas left in the bar.

What? It's true.

…Okay, there were a couple of other guys—a sallow, bitter-looking dude with some mangy rabbit doll and this golden-haired kid, pretty 'cept for the spoiled pout on his lips and the ugly wine-colored mark across one cheek and eye—but they were sorry-lookin' _losers,_ and that's different. If you don't believe me, go look it up on dicktionary—er, _dictionary_—.com. I'll wait.

…Told ya so.

Anyway, our guys' eyes met in the dark mirror behind the bar, equal looks of bleary dismay on their faces when the barkeep poured their last drinks. So Sha sort of sidled over to Cho (misery loves company, after all, and if anyone was ever looking for company, it was our man Sha Gojyo) and said, "You're something of a regular here, right? I mean, I've seen you here before, haven't I?"

"Have you?" Cho asked. He sounded bored, but he kept his eyes—a real intense green even behind his glasses—on Sha's face the whole time, not even looking down at his gin and tonic when he poked at the ice with one of those dinky little red straws.

"Yeah. Yeah, I have. I'm good with faces, and yours is the kind that sticks. Distinctive." What he meant was _pretty_—because Cho was. "Plus, you don't look like the rest of the folks who're usually in here, you know?" He gestured at Cho's slacks and tie and button-down shirt. "Most of the other regulars—the regular regulars, I guess—look more like…" Sha kinda plucked at the zipper dangling from the bottom of his leather jacket, tugged at the hem of his tight t-shirt.

"Then I suppose I must be 'something of a regular' after all." Cho took a drink, and the ice cubes clinked around in the glass.

"So'm I. A regular regular, though. Sha Gojyo." Sha tilted his tumbler of tequila at Cho in something like a salute, or maybe it was an invitation, one of those, y'know, subliminal signals they say people send out with their body language when they're talking.

"Cho Hakkai," said Cho, after letting the silence get stretched out a little too long. Sha smiled.

 

_The guy's—Cho's—tongue was still in his mouth, twisting around his own, and then Cho was softly _ohfuck, how did he know, **how did he know?**_ biting down on his tongue, and he couldn't help himself. He moaned against Cho's lips—sucked in a juniper-flavored breath—pushed his pelvis forward, rubbing against Cho's hip as he started to get hard. He moaned again when Cho moved the tails of his leather jacket out of the way and scrabbled at his tight shirt, yanking it up. Nails scraped over his hot skin. Cho pushed him up against the wall, kissing harder now and starting to taste more like his own hot need than the cold of winter. He brought his hands up, maybe to undo some of Cho's buttons, but then Cho's hands snapped around his wrists, pulling them up over his head and pinning them against the bricks in a strong, one-handed grip that felt like it'd be hard to break but wasn't actually ungentle. And then he didn't care at all, because Cho's free hand was unbuttoning his jeans, tugging down the zip, pulling down denim and cotton and exposing him to the night and to Cho's heated green gaze._

"I got—" Shit, his voice was rough, husky; he wanted this too much, wanted Cho too much. And he was stupid, so stupid;_ he couldn't believe how stupid he was going to be, but he couldn't help it, not when Cho was kissing his throat like that, holding his wrists like that, biting his bottom lip and closing those _ahfuck**fuck**_ teeth on the pulse point just under his jaw like that… "I got, ah, lube in my pocket. 'Cause you're gonna fuck me, right? Please say you're gonna—_ah! God…_—fuck me!"_

Cho's fingers tightened on his wrists, still strong; still not ungentle, and he felt a pull-and-tug as Cho went through his pockets one-handed and brought out the small tube of slick.

"Yes, I'm going to fuck you." Cho's voice was soft, polite. Conversational, even. And cool, so cool. He was shaking again, just from the sound of Cho's voice and from the wanting, even if this was one of the stupidest things he'd ever done. And he didn't care, he couldn't care, wouldn't_ care. Cho let go of his wrists and transferred that strong, sure grip to his hip, thumb brushing gently over his hipbone and trailing more gently still through his pubes._

 

"Okay. So, whaddya do, Cho Hakkai? Dressed like that in a place like this." Sha's smile was getting suggestive. Don't think he really meant much by it at that point; he was just that kinda guy.

"I teach advanced theology courses at St. Ambrose's." Cho flicked the rim of his glass. His hands were elegant, pretty.

"That swanky private university up the hill?" Sha's eyebrows went up when Cho nodded. "So you're a—"

"No. Not a priest or reverend. I'm not ordained in any way. Which is just as well, considering." The corner of Cho's mouth curled up in a bitter, self-mocking smirk.

"Okay." Sha didn't seem to notice, or was pretending not to notice. "I work at a body shop." He snorted, almost getting some tequila up his nose, when Cho blinked at him. "That's not a, a whatsit… a euphemism for what you're thinking," he said. Sha got that a lot. It was the tight jeans and tighter t-shirts that showed off the bumps of his nipple piercings, and the way he walked and talked and smiled, like he was always cruising for a good time. And he was, that guy—always looking for "a bit of fun." He just didn't get paid for it, is all. "Cars. Restoring classics, mostly. My brother owns the place. I do some painting, some leatherwork for the interiors. Stuff like that."

"All right. It doesn't matter one way or the other, of course. But I do wonder. I've seen you leaving with women, a different one every time. I've even seen you leave with a man or two." Now it was Cho's turn to flash a suggestive smile.

"Yeah, okay." Sha swallowed a mouthful of tequila, grimacing a little as it burned its way down his throat. "I like having company. Don't like being on my own much." He pinched some of his long, dark red hair between his thumb and forefinger, studying it like he was looking for the next thing to say before he dropped it and opened his mouth again. "I don't always fuck 'em." He saw light flash off of Cho's glasses as Cho tilted his head, considering. Sha shrugged. "Don't believe me if you don't want to." But the look in his eyes, the set of his shoulders—they said he wanted someone to believe him.

"I do," Cho said. He looked down at his hands on the edge of the bar, gripping the wood so tight his knuckles were going white, then looked away, into the mirror behind it. "As if having sexual relations with the students from my classes is the worst thing I've ever done." He put his hands in his lap, rubbing his palms on his thighs like they were dirty or sticky or something. …Or maybe he was just rubbing the leftover chill from his drink away. "But if I think of it like that, then I have to wonder why I bother waiting until their course grades are posted." Cho gave a fake, bitter laugh and smiled again, one of those smiles that stretches a mouth a little too wide and doesn't touch the eyes—you know the kind, yeah? Like that.

 

_Cho spun him around quickly, and he ended up with his hands pressed flat against the cold bricks, his ass bared to the world and his cock jutting out into the night air. He still didn't care, _couldn't_ care, not when Cho's mouth was back on his neck with those_ fuckfuckfuckyes_ teeth nipping at him; not when Cho's fingers, slick and cool like his kiss had been, were making him burn inside with _wanting_ as they pushed in and in, steady and sure and so goddamn sweet he thought he could come just like that, right now._

 

Sha watched the light flash off of Cho's glasses again and tipped his head back, draining the last few drops of his tequila—the way you do when last call was a while ago and you've only got something like ten minutes before the bartender sets a boot to your ass.

"Oh, I get it," Sha said. He dropped his empty glass on the bar and pushed it away, muttering something like _bad, bad man; right_ under his breath. "Those—" he pointed at Cho's glasses and tie and faked a smile that looked more like a grimace "—are, whaddya call it, protective coloration? No, um, camouflage. Yeah." He waved his hand in Cho's face when Cho opened his mouth to tell him that those are pretty much the same damn thing. "Shh. I'm thinkin' aloud here. Okay, so those things let you blend in, right, make you look like the rest of us—" he flapped his hand vaguely "—but you're not, are you?"

"No." Cho shook his near-empty glass, the ice cubes rattling like dry bones, then set it aside. His gaze was steady, and Sha could see darkness hiding behind the light in Cho's eyes and in the corners of his smile.

"So what are you?" Yeah, something in Cho's eyes might have been dark, but he wasn't trying to hide it from our man Sha. Wouldn't have mattered if he was since Sha Gojyo hadn't been afraid of the dark since he was a kid. Anyway, the dark is better for some things, y'know? And Sha might have had a touch of it in himself. Not all darkness is really _dark,_ right?

"I'm the serpent in the Garden, I suppose, or perhaps more of a… viper." Cho reached out and rested the tips of his fingers on the strip of skin sticking out beyond the cuff of Sha's sleeve. He stroked along the vein visible there, then curled his fingers around Sha's wrist, strong but not insistent.

"Sure," Sha said, "okay." He was looking at Cho's fingers around his wrist but didn't try to pull away. "But nobody made them eat the apple. They decided for themselves. They wanted a taste, so they had one. All the snake did was make the offer." Now he looked into Cho's eyes, saw the beginnings of uncertainty there. "It's all free will, right? Or supposed to be. I mean, I know that much." Sha grinned, mostly to himself, in that way some people have—especially the ones like Sha Gojyo. And then he wrapped his own fingers around Cho's wrist.

"Is it?" Cho sounded like he was asking himself, eyes on his and Sha's hands. His fingers twitched a little, like he was maybe thinking twice about touching Sha now. But Sha didn't move.

"S'what I think, yeah." Sha shrugged his shoulder. "But what do I know? I'm just some slutty guy who works on cars and likes to fuck."

"Are you?" Cho was looking at Sha again, and the light in his eyes was starting to look more like hunger. "Most people think the serpent was the only tempter in the Garden. He was Eve's tempter, yes. But Eve… Eve was Adam's."

"Free will, baby. Like I said, it's all free will. For Adam and Eve both." Sha shrugged again, then jumped a little as Cho started to stand, still holding on. But Sha stood up with him, and he didn't let go, either. In fact, he was the one who tugged on Cho's arm and led him back past the bar, into the hall where the toilets were. And by the time they stumbled through the door that opened onto the back alley, Cho had his hands on Sha's shoulders and his tongue in Sha's mouth, and Sha's back was against the bricks.

 

_He was hard now, so hard he _hurt._ Cho was pushing into him, _fuck, yeah, yeah, all the way in, fuck me, **fuck me**_, and he was making noises way deep down in his throat. He could feel Cho's breath against his cheek, feel the throb of Cho's pulse inside him (or maybe it was his own) when Cho pulled back and thrust in again, deeper this time… then again… and yet again, over and over. He braced one hand against the wall in front of him and dropped the other to his cock, but before he could touch himself to bring relief from the tingle and burn gathering behind his balls, Cho's slippery hand was there, curling around him and pumping his cock in time with thrusts that were getting faster and harder. Cho's breath was loud in his ear—as loud as the blood rushing in his head—and Cho's soft moans and _oh!_s punctuated the stabs of pleasure beginning to run together inside him. He fucked forward into Cho's fist one last time, and then his knees locked and he was jerking in Cho's grasp, ass clenching around Cho's cock and come spilling over Cho's fingers and against the wall. He jammed his fingertips into the gaps between the bricks, hanging on as Cho fucked into him—_in and in and oh, God **in**_—until Cho's open mouth pressed against his shoulder and he could feel Cho's orgasm like a soft echo of his own as Cho clung to him, trembling against his back._

 

Sha let his forehead thump against the wall as Cho slid out of him. He could feel Cho on the back of his neck, sort of rubbing his cheek against the long red hair and the sweaty skin there. Cho's hands were on Sha's hips, grip still strong and sure, but still gentle, too. Sha moved his own hand to his waist and took Cho's wrist, pulling at it until Cho's hand was resting on his stomach. Cho didn't seem to mind; he sighed into Sha's hair.

"So." Sha's voice was a little rough and shaky, like it always was after he'd gotten fucked. He squeezed Cho's wrist before turning around to face him. Cho was flushed, the look on his face unguarded for a few seconds before he started to close up again. "You know what I think now?"

"About…?" Cho's voice was a little rough, too. It could have been the fuck, but it was probably something else. But…

Yeah, okay, it was _probably_ the fuck.

"I don't think you're a viper at all. Maybe not even a serpent," Sha said. He watched as Cho's face finished closing off all the way and shrugged, tucking himself back in his pants without taking his eyes off Cho's. "Inside somewhere, you're just like the rest of us. That other stuff? That's the real camouflage. Not those glasses or—" he twitched the bottom of Cho's tie "—this, or even that damned smile, like you think." He flicked his fingers. "That dark crap? I think it's hiding the real you."

"Do you." It wasn't a question, not the way Cho said it. Sha hardly noticed, and anyway, Sha didn't scare easily.

"Yeah."

"And how can you be so certain?" Cho watched Sha, cool as you please, even with his pants still undone and his dick peeking out from under his shirt. Sha looked at it (he couldn't help himself, y'know?), and Cho just reached down and put himself in order, even cooler than before. Like ice.

"Because sometimes good people do bad things," Sha said.

"Oh? Sometimes bad people do good things, or things that are neither bad nor good," Cho countered.

Sha shrugged again. "Yeah, okay. Maybe so. But in my experience, bad people don't worry about the bad stuff. They don't worry about what they've done at all. And you do." He reached out and curled his fingers in Cho's shirt. "You do."

"Do I?" Cho's voice cracked the tiniest bit on the question. Helpless in the face of Sha Gojyo's so-called _logic,_ maybe. "I…"

"Yeah. You do," Sha said, pulling Cho forward into his kiss.

And that? That's how it all happened.

Well, sorta, anyway.

**End**


End file.
